I just wanted to call attention to an interesting presentation, Christopher Carfi, Founder of Cerrado, Inc. gave this week in Washington D.C. Sharing his slides through SlideShare, you can view his presentation here.
The key takeaway that should be clear to any business is that the old business adage -- The Customer Is Always Right, is only a small piece to the customer equation. In today's world, Carfi notes that we are in an era he coins "The Social Customer," which evolves the business to customer relationship far beyond addressing the customer on a service level. The new saying sounds more like...
The Customer Is Always Empowered to:
- demand more of what you offer, including accurate information (when they want it, how they want it...and even will find it at the price they want it)
- give a voice (directly/indirectly) to your product development
- connect within a community of your customers
- influence others to buy or not
- rate your services publicly
- challenge and influence the direction of your business or message
- create buzz and free word of mouth (up to a viral storm of publicity)
- accept or reject the authenticity of your relationship
As you can see, the "Social Customer" is much more involved in your success or failures. When designing customer experiences, you should strongly consider how to interact and engage with this more active customer.
As the saying goes...
"The customer is always right, but she is no longer a passive recipient of your goods and services, but one with a voice, a keyboard, and maybe even a video camera and a YouTube account! :)
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